Paul Gosar’s Siblings Want Him Kicked Out of Congress, And They Want it NOW (Updated)

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NBC News reports, Gosar’s siblings want their brother kicked out of Congress. They think Democrats are moving too slow.

Few members of Congress have been as loud in repeating Donald Trump’s false election claims as Rep. Paul Gosar, the Arizona Republican who rallied supporters of the president to overturn the election and has been at the forefront of efforts to downplay the Capitol riot.

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Gosar has been at the center of the national controversy, which has also been very personal for his siblings — six who had been vocal in urging voters not to re-elect him to Congress because of his fringe views. Now, some want him removed from office, and they criticize Democratic leadership for not acting more quickly.

Two of his estranged siblings told NBC News in interviews that the congressman’s conduct around the riot should be investigated and that he should face more serious consequences for his ongoing efforts to delegitimize the election results and the attack on the U.S. Capitol.

“I consider him a traitor to this country. I consider him a traitor to his family,” Gosar’s brother, Dave, a Wyoming attorney, said. “He doesn’t see it. He’s disgraced and dishonored himself.”

The congressman’s family first gained national notoriety when six of his siblings appeared in an ad endorsing his 2018 Democratic opponent. In a subsequent tweet, Gosar, whose office did not respond to requests for comment for this article, deemed those brothers and sisters to be angry, anti-Trump Democrats (Pete Gosar, the former chair of the Wyoming Democratic Party and one of the congressman’s siblings, did not partake in the ad). Their mother, speaking with The New York Times, backed the congressman.

Dave Gosar, one of the more outspoken members of the family, said his falling out with his brother began soon after his brother ran for office in 2010 and “revealed to me that he was a birther,” promoting the false idea that then-President Barack Obama was not born in the U.S.

Family members decided to speak out in 2017 after Gosar suggested that the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where a counterprotester was killed, was a false flag — that the event was actually the product of sympathetic actors seeking to hurt conservative causes.

Jennifer Gosar, the youngest of the congressman’s nine siblings, told NBC News she’s confident her brother played a significant role in the effort that culminated in the Capitol riot.

“I was concerned before,” Jennifer Gosar, a Seattle-based Spanish translator, said of the riot. “I was horrified during, and I’m shocked that he’s not censured now, that there hasn’t been a process for expulsion. I mean, I think all the elements are clear. And maybe there’s something I’m missing, but they’re not acting on it to really allay any fears of the public.”

“I’m concerned there are leaders in the Democratic Party, there are leaders across ideologies who do not speak up,” she said. “I just can’t fathom it.”

Note: Rep.Cori Bush (D-Mo.) led 47 lawmakers in sponsoring a resolution in January that called for House Republicans who played a role in inciting the violence to be investigated by the Ethics Committee and potentially be sanctioned or removed from office. The House Ethics Committee, chaired by Theodore E. Deutch (D-FL), has already dismissed ethics complaints against all of the Republican members of the House implicated in the January 6 insurrection. Ethics panel declines to investigate Rep. Paul Gosar over claim he sparked Jan. 6 riot.

“House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Monday introduced legislation that would create a select committee to probe the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob, with an aide suggesting the speaker may include a Republican among her appointees.” Why? No one from the 139 members of the Sedition Caucus. Pelosi introduces legislation that would establish select committee to probe Jan. 6 Capitol attack. “The House Rules Committee will consider the legislation Monday night, and the full House is expected to vote on it Wednesday.”

Just to be clear, it takes a two-thirds vote of Congress to expel a member of Congress and that requires Republican votes to make it happen. 139 Republicans in the House, the Sedition Caucus, voted against certifying the Electoral College results on January 6. So they have the votes to prevent any one of them from ever being expelled from Congress. Voters will have to kick all of them out.

‘I have never instigated violence’

Few elected officials on the right embraced efforts to overturn last fall’s election quite like Gosar. He told Trump supporters at a December protest at the Arizona Capitol, “Once we conquer the Hill, Donald Trump is returned to being the president.”

At Trump’s rally before the riot, Gosar tweeted: “Biden should concede. I want his concession on my desk tomorrow morning. Don’t make me come over there.”

In that tweet, he tagged the far-right activist Ali Alexander, who organized the “Stop the Steal” movement and with whom Gosar rallied elsewhere in an effort to overturn the election.

Weeks before the riot, Alexander told followers in a since-deleted video on Periscope that he, Gosar, and along with two other members, “schemed up [the idea] of putting maximum pressure on Congress while they were voting” on Jan. 6. to “change the minds of Republicans in that body hearing our loud roar from outside.”

Responding to a complaint filed with the House Ethics Committee, Gosar said: “I have never instigated violence,” adding, “I have never aided or abetted violence. I have not urged or supported violence.”

Since the Capitol riot, Gosar has led the defense of those who stormed the Capitol, calling them “peaceful patriots” at a May 12 hearing. He has sought to paint Ashli Babbit, the rioter who was shot and killed by Capitol Police after attempting to breach an entrance near the House chamber as members and aides were fleeing, as a victim who was “executed.” He added the unnamed officer was “lying in wait” for her.

He joined 20 House Republicans in voting against awarding Congressional Gold Medals to the officers who defend the Capitol against the mob.

‘Emboldened’ Gosar goes on

Soon after the riot, three of the congressman’s siblings, including Dave and Jennifer Gosar, contacted Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz., asking him to help expel their brother from Congress over his role in the happenings. Such a step is exceedingly rare; Congress has only expelled 20 members in its history.

Earlier this year, Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., called on the House Ethics Committee to probe Gosar’s and two colleagues’ involvement in planning Jan. 6 rallies. This month, the committee said in a letterit was declining to investigate.

Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I., in May asked colleagues to co-sign a resolution calling for the censure of Gosar and others. Months prior, Grijalva asked House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to suspend Gosar’s committee assignments.

CD 3 Congressman Raul Grijalva

None of those efforts have gained steam.

Grijalva said Democrats won’t be pursuing the kind of reprimand with Gosar as they did when stripping Rep. Marjorie “Q” Greene, R-Ga., of committee assignments this year, adding such a move would only serve to create more notoriety for the Arizona Republican.

“Right now, I think Mr. Gosar feels emboldened,” Grijalva said. “Nothing has happened. There has been no reaction on the part of his colleagues in Congress, and, basically, he feels no public reaction. So he proceeds along, every time increasing the rhetoric in a bad way. In a very bad way.”

Dave Gosar thinks the only reason his brother has yet to face consequences is because of a lack of political will.

“They’re trying to bury it just like they bury everything in the past,” he said. “And I want to tell you if they think that’s going to fly this time, they’re sorely mistaken. … I think he should be removed from Congress, and they have the power to do it, no matter what they tell you.”

Jennifer Gosar said she is upset that only Greene has faced formal rebuke after the riot, arguing the freshman member had little to do with the lead-up the rally. Democrats cited other nonriot comments Greene made when she was removed from committees.

“To say that somehow Marjorie “Q” Greene is like the ringleader makes me want to barf,” Jennifer Gosar said. “It’s absolutely not true, and it’s more because they don’t want to take a stronger stance.”

For the record: Close ally of Marjorie Taylor Greene among those in Capitol mob; Videos show ally of Marjorie Taylor Greene among mob inside Capitol during January 6 riot.

Republican lawmakers are in no rush to criticize fellow members like Gosar and Greene, but increasingly, they are also putting distance between such members and themselves.

“The GQP Freedom Caucus Sedition Caucus has become the Marjorie “Q” Greene and Paul Gosar caucus, which has diminished its credibility substantially in the House,” one conservative House member, who declined to be named, said, referring to the group that was once comprised of tea party-aligned lawmakers. “Many members who used to be associated won’t go near Freedom Caucus now.”

For Gosar’s siblings, they say the rift has caused tension in their family but remaining silent was not an option.

“I would not have come out publicly if it were not absolutely necessary,” Jennifer Gosar said. “But just because he’s my brother doesn’t mean he gets a pass.”

UPDATE: Raw Story reports, GOP’s Paul Gosar faces calls for expulsion for reportedly hosting fundraiser with infamous white nationalist:

Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) is facing fresh calls for expulsion after white nationalist Nick Fuentes announced that the far-right congressman would join him for a fundraising event next month.

As Newsweek reports, Gosar “is being advertised on Telegram channel America First Updates as taking part in an event alongside” Fuentes, a white nationalist who in the past has promoted Holocaust denial.

While Gosar hasn’t officially confirmed that he’s taking part in the fundraiser, he did speak earlier this year at Fuentes’s America First Political Action conference and has repeatedly echoed Fuentes’s praise for the violent MAGA rioters who attacked the United States Capitol building on January 6th.

News of the reported fundraiser set off a furious reaction among many observers who called on Congress to hold Gosar accountable to palling around with white nationalists.

And Southern Poverty Law Center reporter Michael Edison Hayden said that the GOP’s decision to continue supporting Gosar showed how dangerously radicalized the party had become.

“Nick Fuentes is an open admirer of fascism and Republicans will do nothing to punish Paul Gosar over this collaboration,” he wrote. “I feel like despite the chatter about how bad the GOP has gotten we haven’t processed what a radical transformation this is for America.”





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1 thought on “Paul Gosar’s Siblings Want Him Kicked Out of Congress, And They Want it NOW (Updated)”

  1. UPDATE: the Washington Post reports “A GOP congressman appears to ally with white nationalists — again”, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/06/29/gop-congressman-appears-ally-with-white-nationalists-again/

    For years, Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) was a thorn in the side of the GOP, lodging extreme remarks on race and immigration that often flew beneath the radar because of his status as a backbencher, but put his party in an uncomfortable spot. Then he crossed the line with his party when he was quoted by the New York Times saying, “White nationalist, White supremacist, Western civilization — how did that language become offensive?” Republican leaders who had glossed over King’s past controversies stripped him of his committee assignments, and he soon lost a primary.

    Rep. Paul A. Gosar (R-Ariz.) apparently didn’t get the memo that this was a red line. And just as with King, Gosar suddenly appears to be a problem his party can no longer ignore.

    The question increasingly for Republicans is how much its tolerance for this kind of thing has changed in the past two years.

    [T]here was some question Monday night as to whether the joint event between Gosar and Fuentes was legitimate, and Gosar’s office and campaign haven’t responded to requests for comment. But the congressman appeared to defend it late Monday night.

    “Not sure why anyone is freaking out. I’ll say this: there are millions of Gen Z, Y and X conservatives. They believe in America First,” Gosar said in an apparent reference to the America First PAC, which caters to young members of the far right. “They will not agree 100% on every issue. No group does. We will not let the left dictate our strategy, alliances and efforts. Ignore the left.”

    Crucially, the fundraiser would represent a doubling down for Gosar. Back in February, Gosar was criticized for serving as a keynote speaker at an America First PAC event in Orlando in which Fuentes delivered a white-nationalist speech.

    [G]osar’s extremism, of course, is hardly limited to his ties to the America First PAC. He has lodged conspiracy theories about the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and claimed protester Ashli Babbitt was “executed” by police. He has done the same with Charlottesville, suggesting it was a false flag by the left. Gosar’s office even confirmed this week that the congressman was in regular contact with “Stop the Steal” organizer Ali Alexander ahead of the Jan. 6 riot.

    It’s in some ways a wonder that Gosar’s situation has blown up in the way, say, as has that of Rep. Marjorie “Q” Greene (R-Ga.). Part of that is that Gosar hasn’t really built anything amounting to a movement within the GOP. Part of it is also undoubtedly that his speech to the America First PAC crowd in February overlapped with another, more well-attended event: the Conservative Political Action Conference, at which former president Donald Trump spoke.

    But the doubling down on allying with Fuentes would certainly seem to force the issue. Republicans put up with plenty from King before deciding his comment about white supremacy and white nationalism went too far. King, for his part, claimed he was only talking about “Western Civilization” when he said, “How did that language become offensive?” Here we have a Republican congressman not just toying with defending white nationalism, but actually aligning with its adherents — and apparently repeatedly so, after he suggested he was somewhat chastened by the first instance.

    [E]arlier this year, Gosar was reported to be involved along with Greene in the formation of an “America First Caucus,” which hailed “Anglo-Saxon political traditions” and warned that mass immigration would negatively impact the “unique identity” of the country. At the time, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) obliquely denounced such “nativist dog whistles.”

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